on to the next powwow.

let me first explain this title. it is a great memory. i told my daughter of it recently, and so i must tell you.

it was early one evening, we were packing up our camping stuff to leave the powwow grounds. this is a time of happy banter, busily sorting, cleaning, shuffling off to our workaday worlds. when a native man mounted his van and stood just above the front windshield. he spread his arms out to each side and yelled,

come my children, on to the next powwow.

we all laughed, and finished packing. then drove away. to meet up again the next week, when we would unload, set up camp and remind ourselves who we are. a people gathered together for a bit of dancing, fellowship, and a good bit of storytelling.

today we are going to a powwow. the east coast is very different from the west coast in that east coast native people are generally more accepting of others. west coast native people tend to be snobs. it is tough to find a crowd. acceptance.

though having said that, i think of all the west coast natives who nurtured me. who accepted me. who gave me a place to be when i was alone and on the powwow circuit. they took me under their wings and sheltered me, though i didn't know it. that is the problem with generalities. people are just people and elude generalization. so strike what i said above, though i am not alone in this finding.

it is not often i go places and feel like the ideal of beauty. our culture seems to iconize white, tall, thin, blonde women. i'll never be any of those things. i'm short, dark in all manner, not sleek and young, dark hair and dark eyes. the cool thing about powwows is, the native culture is so kind to elders. and while i'm not elder material yet, i'm getting there. the grey is multiplying and lengthening.

my husband tries to pull these from me, but i tell him he is robbing me of my crown of glory and to leave them alone. i've waited my whole life for this day when i could age with dignity. and so i shall.

he yanked a really long one out about three weeks ago. it was about two feet long. i was sorry to see it go. that white, glorious hair wafting to the ground, taking with it my yearning to live. what have i to show if i hide my age? what have i to show if i try to be someone i'm not? when these hairs leave me not of their own accord, i am sad to see them go. as if some part of me has died.

when we walk around powwows, the women naturally gawk at my husband. they always do. even when we're not at powwows. this reminds me of a great many things. he is a feast for the eyes when i'm not pissed at him. he is the desire of many women though i forget because we are so close. i spend so much time focused on his shortcomings, i forget about what a decent man and good father he is. what a generous husband and companion he has been to me. i forget all these things when i focus on what i'm missing, instead of what i have.

i left my shawls, all of them, in texas. i didn't even think about powwows in the frenzied packing. i didn't even pack my master bedroom and closet where the shawls were. it didn't occur to me until we'd been here a number of months that i'd forgotten them.

renee has one, because it was in her room. but i will take a not-native shawl and do the best i can with it. though i have better, i will make due. it is not the way i would prefer to dance, draped in something makeshift. but it is understandable that we must do the best we can. and so i shall. it is the dancing that matters, not the shawl. i can dance and rejoice whether or not i'm properly clad.

i was thinking about going today and a memory popped into my mind of my daughter's first powwow. i took her with me to gourd dance. i had her in a front sling, so when i was dancing, her little head was sticking out the top of my shawl. this is a moment i wish i would have gotten a picture. but i knew no one at that powwow and was there alone. my beloved's family arrived after the gourd dancing and i had already departed by then. i missed them. it was in arizona, so my california friends might have been there, but i was too tired to hunt them down. new motherhood coupled with dancing was too much for me alone. i went home and slept.

i had gourd danced with her the entire time of her youth because at times it was the only thing that would get the child to stop crying and sleep. something of my past she remembered before she was born. a time immemorial.

i think about this often, if women have all the eggs they will ever have in their bodies when they are born, they are never without their children, until said children are born. so my daughter did gourd dance with me all my days at powwows. her memory of the dance was probably soothing to her.

i must away. the dance calls. i pray i am up to it. that i will find a bit of who i am and have forgotten there. and that my husband will be reminded of my great love for him.

ah, the stories we shall tell when we are old.